Thread regarding IBM layoffs

And the 2021 Trolling Award goes to....

Agree, it is all off-topic, but I seriously find the discussion/argument very informative as to the vastly different perspectives that different groups have on the same things.

(And entertaining too, and reasonably civil so far compared to some other threads on this site)

I started this thread, can we get back to my original question, enough with all the bickering.

The argument below boils down to...

1. Youngsters - We know all this new cool stuff... we're the smartest

2. Oldsters - Theres nothing new about any of it... we're the smartest

3. Reality - We're all just trained monkeys fighting for the crumbs... LOL! There is some new code base, it really isn't anything new, it does create hiring and career mobility issues that us practicioners really need to fight somehow. We need to get it down to fewer better ways, not 100's of similar ways.

It's a bit like human languages... none is all that much better or worse than any other... but it certainly creates communcation problems to have so many... or more germane... unnecessary barriers to job entry, and getting things done once on the job.

Good luck solving it.

In business Sales Always Wins...

1. "Damn you are dense. "

You are dense, LOL!

You think it some new great thing... and it isn't. It's just a marketing wrapper.

Doesn't matter to me where the machine is I logon to, to develop. But it does matter how those extra layers add points of failure, headaches to diagnosis, etc.

2. "or get funding for it"

It still has to be paid for... and given that it adds an entire other corporate structure into the picture... it's not cheaper overall... both boardrooms have to make their money.

You're complete outside reality now.

This is part of the problem, right here... that Devs are shielded from realities like the budget. Don't know when all this "coddle the devs (with Agile no less) got started exactly. But it is an anathema.

Every dev should be made to work up through Operations and support of software they did not write, before they ever code a line. The need to experience what it's like to have Sev 1 in the middle of the night on a mission critical system that has SLA's with financial penalties... then a lot of this nonsense would go away.

3. "worry about patches to os"

If you think an OS patch is never going to break your wonderful creation... wow.. I don't know what to say... You're lost.

You want to believe in fairy tales, rather than reality.

"Whoever these two dudes are need to take their sass fight somewhere else no one cares about your nonsense. Also that one guy is very clearly inflating his own plus + signs by using incognito tabs. There is little to no chance 10 people cared in any way. "

Wow... didn't realize I was getting so many rep points... not that I care, LOL! Certainly not repping myself. Rep points are kinda stupid.

It's actually an important debate for all of us... the direction of the industry...

By splintering the industry and having recruiters using those splinters as sorting criteria and barriers to entry, we aid and abet the career mobility problems that (especially) the contracting companies have been causing ever since they got in the biz back during the lead up to Y2K renovations.

“ Eliminate the need for hardware and maintenance"... get real... you just pay AWS to do that for you... I.e. they run the mess... on which you new mess sits...”

BRUH, you’re missing the point… SWEs now don’t have to worry about doing that or get funding for it, or worry about patches to os, etc

Damn you are dense.

To "Not to get in the middle of your love feud but…. " person...

Apparently you're in the wrong end of it (as am I)... Companies like Onica are posting $160K AWS Architect roles all the time.

Somebody is paying for that...

Co-workers of mine work that space now and they continue to send me emails of such postings saying I should get certified and switch...

"...skills are obsolete ... "

This is what you don't get... the things you are calling "skills" aren't... it's the same old stuff... with different names. Maybe they are skills in a trained monkey sort of way, but I digress.

Programming is programming... comes down to about this...

1. What do I have to write to get it to do what I want?
2. Where to do I have to locate it to make it run?

There's been nothing really new in software in decades... just same concepts in different wrappers.

Problem is... the recruiters (and apparently some "engineers") don't seem to know this, so it keeps people out of jobs... and then they claim there is a "shortage", etc.

By buying into this BS, you expand the problems.

Nobody is "bu-t hurt"... they pi---d that engineering got taken over by a layer Dilbert style characters, LOL! It's all become buzzword BS.

Heck even the names are ridiculous... everything has "y" and "z" and "x" in it or some woke afrophile name like "Ubuntu", LOL!

Not to get in the middle of your love feud but….
“ That's a bit false. If it's so easy, why does it take 6 figure, "AWS Certified [Architect, Developer, etc.] to properly use it?”

I’m a lowely 3 yoe dev making <80k and I know how to use AWS and IBM’s cloud. I use a text editor (FYI, all devs do these days), push a couple buttons, and I can have an app that uses watson services up and running.

Can confirm.
The “cloud” is just someone else’s computer

Take it from an old z/OS programmer. The core of Cloud is what we used to call a "DASD farm", a huge storage facility that processes transactions from various servers. This is 1970s technology, people. The "magic" of Cloud is that you can reach the DASD farm through the internet - 90s technology. So yeah, everything else is marketing.

Whoever these two dudes are need to take their sass fight somewhere else no one cares about your nonsense. Also that one guy is very clearly inflating his own plus + signs by using incognito tabs. There is little to no chance 10 people cared in any way.

Oh Ge-z, where to start with this Kool Aid, LOL!

1. Bruh, are you sure you know what it is and how cloud works?

“… If anything, it's an overly complicated mess, used to make even bigger computer messes.”

BTW, stop saying "bruh"... this isn't that old movie, Point Break...

A: Yes, I know how it works. I even have stuff running on AWS.

2. It’s a lot easier to stand up apps and services, reduces barrier to entry and eliminates need for hardware and maintenance. It’s not just “meh”

A: That's a bit false. If it's so easy, why does it take 6 figure, "AWS Certified [Architect, Developer, etc.] to properly use it?

Text editor, compiler and link editor was all that was required in the "Old World". FWIW, if you know what you are doing that can be enough in the "New World" too, as I've done it with vi and vim, LOL!

"Eliminate the need for hardware and maintenance"... get real... you just pay AWS to do that for you... I.e. they run the mess... on which you new mess sits...

It's all bloat for the purpose of revenue streams...

Personally, if I had to work on it, I'd prefer to work at Amazon on one of their dev teams that creates the parts you see.

3. Clearly you aren’t aware of all the benefits. If it was meh, why does everyone run on a cloud and not host everything themselves in house?

A : You seem to forget... everyone did host everything in house at one point. Your youth is showing here.

What happened was... the in house folks made such messes... that sales guys figured out the "We'll run your mess for less" schpiel... which came along right when one would expect... at about the time the in house market got saturated and they couldn't figure out where to sell more stuff too.

Wake up... Cloud is a marketing solution... not a technology solution. It's about revenue streams... not about most efficient or best... I think economists call it "rent seeking".

4. I bet you love Lotus Notes and Sametime and hate Slack and Box.

Slack and Box both lack features I relied on in Notes and Sametime. But that's another long story. Slack and Box were both useless churn.

You have been suckered into the Agile Cult it would seem. And that's yet another long story, as Agile is a political statement and philosophy, not an engineering philosophy.

But since you can't seem to see what Cloud is really about, I'll have wait for you to catch up, before we have that discussion.

Put your Agile/Cloud bible down and start thinking like an engineer, LOL!

Something IT folks often forget... sometimes the best alternative is no computer at all... sometimes a pencil and paper are more than sufficient...

You are correct mate. The world is doing nothing to improve but complicate existing things.

Nowadays, everything youngsters compare themselves in terms of money 💰. But they don't know when they would retire, inflation would make their retiring salary in to penuts. New comers will always earn on par with them. There are very few smart people out there who really wants to improve things irrespective of money.

History will only remember who's the founder of any innovative ideas. Not any employees or following CEO's.

Try to improve the world. Eventually we all are working for IBM or some it company. They are making billions of dollars, not us. So focus on your health and family. Do your 8 hr job and enjoy life each day. Don't compare youngsters with older generation. Always remember older generation is way smart than us youngsters. They joined IBM when it was Google of that time. Give them respect. When you move pass your life each day, you will have more and more responsibility.

Do work to live your life. Don't live life to only work.

I left ibm about 4 months ago. Found a job within 2 weeks. It all depends what you were doing at ibm. I was working under gbs on aws and azure . If you are working on ibm technology you will have a hard time finding a job

Just depends on what you are looking for... If you are in services, then most BPs (IBM Business Partners) are hiring like crazy right now since IBM doesn't want to be in services anymore (not sure what GBS is going to do going forward). Certainly, Lab Services (Expert Labs) is getting decimated these days, there is no future for anyone in that group. The remaining people there will all eventually get laid off. Most of these BPs typically pay decent salaries.

Did someone just promote that pile of useless sh!t they call slack?

"Please make sure you reply to the thread and not create new ones"
(having to tell people that shows its design = epic fail)

Sametime was better, no matter what the man bun is saying.

Bruh, are you sure you know what it is and how cloud works?

“… If anything, it's an overly complicated mess, used to make even bigger computer messes.”

It’s a lot easier to stand up apps and services, reduces barrier to entry and eliminates need for hardware and maintenance. It’s not just “meh”

Clearly you aren’t aware of all the benefits. If it was meh, why does everyone run on a cloud and not host everything themselves in house?

I bet you love Lotus Notes and Sametime and hate Slack and Box.

"So you think cloud is worthless and a fad? "

Not worthless and not a fad... but not a "technology breakthrough" or anything like that. Certainly not "new" technology.

It's a marketing achievement / phenomenon.

Networked computing has been around or a long time. A s/360 was part of the original DARPANET... right?

Cloud just adds a provisioning/billing layer to things.

IBM dabbled in the idea at least a decade ago with "On Demand Computing" as they called it.

The "big idea" is to stop selling hardware/software stacks to customers... and start leasing these things to customers... it's about revenue flow... not technological advancement.

Calling it tech advancement is Kool Aid... it's a solution to a cash flow problem.

From an engineering standpoint it's just one big "Meh".

If anything, it's an overly complicated mess, used to make even bigger computer messes.

Practically speaking, the definition of bloat for the purposes of "utility like revenue streams"... subscriptions, basically.

So don't mistake it for what it really is.

OPEX vrs. CAPEX and other financial engineering games gives it some legs. "Pay by the drink" as they like to say.

But in the end... the engineering triangle is same as it ever was.

There’s no sense in arguing with the old timers. Bro is clearly living in the 90s and btthurt that his skills are obsolete because he decided to sit on his azz during his career and not keep up with technology.

So you think cloud is worthless and a fad?

1. "Wow you old timer really don’t want to learn new tricks."

Why would anyone want to learn new "tricks"... what to pretty ourselves up for the next John?

You have heard of engineering, right?

2. Do you know what an api is?

APIs have existed since the first macro packages... SYS1.MACLIB on OS/360 and descendents... do you really think an API is something "new"? Geezus... children... learn your trade.

3. you probably think everything needs to be a monolith package you should learn about SOAP and services and building to scale.

Isn't SOAP considered passe now... replaced by... wait for it... yet another reinvention of a function / macro library... LOL!

4. Clearly you are hitter because your knowledge is outdated. I’m not worried. I’m taking your job and your raise once you get cut because you’re over 60

You're not "taking" anything... you are being given... granted by owners who haven't learned any better yet. It's like saying the Offshore folks are "taking our jobs"... they aren't... our own leadership is assigning them elsewhere...

But that's a different discussion. Labor Arbitrage and such topics

I'm not bitter... I aghast at how stupid, supposedly smart people in this industry are.

Replacing one API with another is not "new technology"... it's just a different code base.

We are doomed... the continual proliferation of new computer messes will never end with your kind of thinking. With predictable results. Unsupportability over time.

Wasn't one of the promises of Object that we'd eventually have libraries of standard parts... rather like the acme sc--w and nut of mechanical engineering world.

We're so far behind... we aren't even at the Model T phase in this industry yet.

And ironically, that's something a Gray Haired manager said to me back in the 80's... been 30 years... and no real improvement in that direction.

This is supposed to be an engineering field... not a fad driven marketing thing...

We're all just "brain ho's". If we're not financially independent, we're owned.

Hint... the pimps make better money.

As an industry, we could use some cohesiveness on technology directions, instead of the herding cats scenario we seem to have.

Wow you old timer really don’t want to learn new tricks. Do you know what an api is?you probably think everything needs to be a monolith package you should learn about SOAP and services and building to scale. Clearly you are hitter because your knowledge is outdated. I’m not worried. I’m taking your job and your raise once you get cut because you’re over 60

Hmm... does everyone realize we are all really just the grease monkeys of the current era?

Ain't none of us anything special.

Guys like Knuth, Dijkstra, Ahmdahl, Turing, von Neuman, and other historic luminaries were smart... the rest of us... just after the fact.

We are Work-a-day code schleppers fighting amongst ourselves as those up the chain get richer than us, LOL! Worker Bees we are.

Somewhere I think I read the Dilbert Principle was... "There are about 1000 smart people in the world, the rest of us are trying to catch up."

Sounds about right, LOL!

"None of the 40 SWEs I know at iBM have any of those skills. They all have "modern programming" skills. Any of them could get a job at other companies. Most of the SWE are not old farts that know that crâp. "

Putting "modern programming" in quotes is about right... nothing truly modern about the "cr@p" that folks call "modern" as of late. Just re-invented wheels.

Heck you work at IBM, not one of the FAANGs... so you're already earmarked as a dummy... right?

Not to start a flame war here... but the young crowd are the one's that don't know "cr@p"... they think connecting AWS wrapped code is "programming".

If you can't do the assembler language of the platform you're on and make that platform do anything... privileged instructions and all... what do you really know.

And to go a step further... if you don't know the hardware... what do you know... and then the chip manufacture and so on...

The only real geniuses in this biz are the true hardware, OS, networking, driver developers, etc.

All this "new stuff" is just code bases strung together by the rest of us "know nothings"... no matter the age.

As one poster said in another thread... Enzo Ferrari said he wasn't going to make 4 wheel drive sports cars... because, "People who know how to drive, don't need that sh*t".

If you need an IDE... you don't know cr@p... or maybe the underlying languages and tools you are using are so f'ed up that they fail at being accessible to humans... C++ comes to mind...

I you can't do it with a text editor... you're on crutches...

Gene Ahmdahl was a genius... Fred Brooke was a genius... the rest of us... just glomming on to make a living.

For that matter... truly smart people don't get into this biz for the most part... these days... better ROI on effort in other fields. JD, MD, MBA still end up employing IT folks in the vast majority of cases...

Most of the cr@p that has come along recently was really the lazyness of the young crowd being unwilling to learn the existing tools... so they wrote their own inferior examples... that are still being debugged (as is the older stuff)... ironically enough.

That's just how new entrants into this biz are... they are enthralled with coding... not learning... and each new generation learns some coding skills and thinks they are going to program (or re-program) the world... and they put their feet in to all the same p-t holes... except that now there are more computer messes... more different ways of doing the same cr@p, etc.

So get over your young self... You don't know cr@p... and one could argue most of the world is in that boat... do you really know chemistry, physics, etc... or heck... how about just basic survival... could you really last a winter in the north if you were tossed there with nothing.

People in general, don't know cr@p anymore... mass manufacturing took that need away...

So again... get over yourself... you're just another bu-t trying to make money and convince others they should pay you. Reminds me of the scene in "The Deliverance" where the old timer says... "You don't know nothing"...

Truth is... you probably don't... LOL!

Will take some time for you to realize you are making all the same mistakes that were already made...

For those of you that don't know the scene...

https://youtu.be/NFutge4xn3w

"...An IBM'er would have a list of mainframe skills like COBOL, Assembler, JCL, REXX, CLIST, possibly subsystems like CICS or IMS... etc..."

None of the 40 SWEs I know at iBM have any of those skills. They all have "modern programming" skills. Any of them could get a job at other companies. Most of the SWE are not old farts that know that crâp.

age does come into it - im very skilled in my area and do not even get a reply to the job i apply for

Just put cloud and AI on your resume for the young recruiters to contact you.
According to IBM that's all we do, we are "all in hybrid cloud"

"Not SWEs. SWE jobs are plentiful and not specialized. "

YEs... exactly SWE (Software Engineers)... An IBM'er would have a list of mainframe skills like COBOL, Assembler, JCL, REXX, CLIST, possibly subsystems like CICS or IMS... etc.

A non-IBM tech posting would have dozens of "skillsets".

In theory, yes, "programming is programming" and anyone with a little experience realizes most algo's can be realized in most languages...

But... and this is the big but... recruiters want to see exact buzzword matches... no credit given for being able to think in algo terms and then pull the language manual to work out implementation specifics...

Depends on location, YOE, and previous skills. Sift through the numbers. Don't just apply for one or two jobs a week. I've applied to at least a hundred positions (even ones I thought I'd not be qualified enough for) and interviewed dozens of times with many different teams before landing my current and last job. Just keep going, it'll work out. Go learn new skills on Udemy. It's a great site to brush up on skills no one at IBM would really have the opportunity to learn. Golang, kubernetes, python, containers, devops. Tons of jobs looking for those now.

Not SWEs. SWE jobs are plentiful and not specialized.

Just a thought... most IBM jobs are intensely specialized. But most post-IBM-technology job reqs. have a laundry list of "skills"...

So... most IBMers are seemingly, too specialized for today's postings.

Sales jobs are plentiful right now.